Look what I just turned up. A moon hoax documentary that comes at it from the other side. It tries to prove that we DID go to the moon!

http://www.moonhoax.com/default.htm

Don't know anything about it other than what's mentioned on the site, but it's cool that someone is trying to defend the faith. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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David Hall
"Dave... my mind is going... I can feel it... I can feel it."

(edited some smilies and added my sig.)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Hall on 2001-10-29 12:11 ]</font>

The guys who put this together emailed me about it some time ago, wanting me to put a link to his site from mine, and saying he would send me a free video if I did. He would not tell me whether he was an HB or not, and I made it quite clear I would not put a link to a guy selling a video if he were an HB. He never emailed me back.

From looking at his site, it's possible the video is a "Spinal Tap" type mockumentary, but I don't know. If anyone buys the video, please let me know what you think.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

Yeah, looking at it closer, it's hard to tell exactly which side he's on. Still, it isn't quite an out-and-out "We didn't go" kind of thing.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Yeah, awfully hard to tell what side of the story he's on. On the one hand he seems to discredit Ralph Rene and maybe some of the other clowns that are held up as veritable gods by the hoax community. But then he goes on to harp about thost nasty ex-Nazis in the space program.

Divide and conquer seems to be par for the moon hoaxster course. David Percy carefully separates himself from the rest of those "nutters" by insisting the landings could have happened, just not in a way we've been told about. Richard Hoagland has a thriving business shooting down his competition. It seems the hoaxsters want to divide themselves into camps and throw mud at each other. Fine, so long as they don't throw any at me.

I've learned by sad experience that appearing on television just never works out the way you think it will. No one who cares about his reputation ought to appear on camera for a producer whose goals are nebulous.

When I was working hardly anyone ever asked me to comment for publication. When someone did, I <u>always</u> referred them to the Public Information Department. They almost never came back.

They were cannibals in the ol' PID, eh?

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Regarding public relations, I have worked mostly at small companies where I was the only engineer with enough eloquence and personal hygiene to make a suitable appearance on television. I wish I had been able to foist off these duties on a public relations department, but unfortunately I think I was the public relations department.

I'm looking at http://www.moonhoax.com/Moonhoax/testimony.htm

It says plainly, "The 60 minute documentary DID WE GO? attempts to prove Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and also investigates how NASA made the attempt." I don't think you can get any more straightfoward than that. But then on the same page the author goes on to drag up the standard arguments, plus a few peculiar ones.

Well, yes. Ex-Nazis played leading roles in nearly everyone's space program. I gather this film director, Aron Ranen, is Jewish. This would explain his particular fascination with the connections between NASA and Nazi Germany.
I don't have the clairvoyance necessary to determine v. Braun's motives. This quickly becomes a moral issue rather than a technical or historical one. What do you do with someone who is extremely talented, but who acts in a morally questionable manner? Is it licit to direct his talents toward less questionable ends? Did his complicity with the Nazi's amount to collaboration or facilitation? Did he have a choice? Was he sympathetic to the Nazi cause, or was he simply an opportunist?

Now here's an interesting point. Look at some of the major NASA sites: Hunstville, Alabama, Houston, Texas, Cape Kennedy, Florida. Those who know U.S. demographics and what was going on in the 1960s in these areas might well take note. Racial politics really hasn't been addressed in connection with the space program.

But it's a bit of a leading question. If the KKK had a presence at KSC, it's not necessarily because NASA was infested with racism. It is likely because everything in the American South was influenced, at least to some degree, by racism during this time.

The problem with the "horror story" type of rhetoric is that with hundreds of thousands of people working in some capacity for the space program, basic statistics dictate that there will be racists, child molesters, wife beaters, tax cheats, embezzlers, and other such unsavory types somewhere in the space program. You simply can't get that many people together -- for any reason -- without those nasty elements of society being there too.

The fact that these people accomplished something extraordinary doesn't preclude the fact that they were people.

I don't mean to excuse any malfeasance that might be uncovered. I'm just saying that NASA and its contractors shouldn't be assumed to be saints.

If the documentary attempts to prove that the landings actually took place, then we'd expect this individual to report that he saw three weary astronauts with great big grins on their faces. I wonder about hype like this. If Mr. Hattleberg testifies he saw the astronauts in the capsule after splashdown, then it would indeed be a point against the hoax believers. (They have a conjectural argument all ready for this contingency though: the astronauts and capsule were simply dumped out of a high-flying cargo aircraft.) But I see no reason to invoke the sense of mystery by pointing out the paucity of his interviews. So what that he has consented to only two interviews. Has he been approached more than twice to give an interview? A more revealing fact would be how many interviews he may have turned down.

Why would an engineer be put in charge of planning a hoax?

We have v. Braun's writings from early in his career. He was obsessed with the engineering problems involved in putting a man on the moon. His concentration on mechanical perfection caused friction in the Nazi hierarchy, who wanted him to hurry up and finish the V-2. He wanted more time.

The character of v. Braun that emerges from his own writings and the statements of those who worked with him is a man whose dream was to land a man on the moon, not to fake landing a man on the moon. To him, getting there wasn't just half the fun, it was all the fun. V. Braun was focused on the process of the moon landing, not in the end result.

Now if the director's contention is that the moon landings were genuine, we'd expect Bonnie's testimony to state, in substance, that she had no knowledge of any plans to falsify the landings. Which doesn't really satisfy the criteria expressed on the web site. If there was a conspiracy, Bonnie might have known or she might not have known. All she can provide is an absence of evidence, in which case it is proper to draw no conclusion.

Again the Nazi angle. Yes, the V-2s were assembled by slave labor. Yes, von Braun knew about it, and in many cases closely directed their labor. Yes, it was a very dark hour in the history of space science.

But the connection between the horror of Nazi Germany and the allegations of conspiracy and falsification is very tenuous. Apparently the line of reasoning is that Nazi attrocities at Peenemunde establishes von Braun as a wicked character, and if he was wicked enough to employ slaves to build the rockets, then he was wicked enough to falsify the lunar landings.

Unfortunately it doesn't make a case. Nowhere in this line of reasoning is there any hook on which to hang evidence either for or against the moon landing.

We have to recall that there are people yet today who vehemently hate Nazi Germany and all those who conspired with them in any way and to any extent. And we grant them some justification. We dare not invalidate those feelings, which run deep, but we question their applicability to a logical inquiry.

Interviews with Rene are rare because he has learned that every time he opens his mouth his foot gets wedged squarely between his teeth. He has no qualifications and a host of crackpot ideas which make no sense. It makes for great stuff on Art Bell, but it's not science in any way.

It's unclear whether the film endorses or contends Rene's comments. If we fall back to the page banner, we should understand that Rene gets deconstructed.

Well, I looked through the site a bit more and downloaded the video clips. Truthfully, there doesn't seem to be very much there at all about the moon landings either way.

What it looks like to me it that he had this good idea to make a hoax video coming from the other side, then got himself sidetracked into a kind of nazi-racist witch hunt. I doubt it's pro-hoax, but it doesn't seem to have much going into it t prove we went either.

The reviews he links there seem to show it as kind of tounge-in-cheek. Not actually a spoof, but something made more for entertainment value than for being informative.

I'd like to see it out of curiosity, but I'm not shelling out the bucks for it. I don't need it proven to me anyway. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

JayUtah said:
Right. And remember - having some KKK members employed is a far cry from the KKK officially running things.

Yeah, what a shock: some KKK members in the deep South during the sixties.

I think the notion that the film started out as a debunking and finished as a tirade against racism fits the limited observations we are able to make.

The downtrodden tend to look at these situations as if they were more polarized than a dispassionate evaluation suggests. In this mindset only two possible categories exist: those who are activity opposed to the oppression, and those who support it. People who are on the sidelines or involuntarily involved are assumed to be complicit since they didn't do anything to stop the oppression.

I won't belabor what's wrong with that way of thinking. But it may help to explain the filmmaker's goal. If he is indeed Jewish, he would certainly have something to say about Nazi Germany and the KKK. NASA's elevation of von Braun and other Peenemunde scientists to positions of authority within NASA would be interpreted in the bifurcational mindset as approval of and possibly even complicity with Nazi Germany's anti-Semitic agenda.

Similarly, just the presence of KKK members in the space program could be interpreted by that mindset to be a form of acceptance and vicarious approval of the anti-Semitic KKK agenda. Those with the "with me or else against me" bias argue that NASA (and society by extension) should take pains to weed out such types, and if they don't then they're just contributing to the problem and therefore just as guilty as those who are actively anti-Semitic. Even if it were a few isolated individuals whose KKK influence never extended beyond the tiny sphere of their individual work assignments, the least bit of tolerance is interpreted by the brittle downtrodden as agreement.

But if you've got some pipe brazer working for you, and he does his job well and leaves his hood and cape at home, you can't just fire him. To expect NASA, or any other employer, to conduct such witch-hunts thoroughly and regularly is antithetical to American society. Obviously overt racism on the job shouldn't be tolerated, but that's a different concept. Just because some of your employees might have white hoods in the trunks of their cars doesn't mean you condone who they are or what they do when you're not working for them.

To argue that NASA was sympathetic to Nazi Germany's principles and practices is ludicrous. To argue that it institutionalized racism (any more than anyone did in the 1960s anyway) is similarly ludicrous.

*Phew* Long post.

One thing... if some people today actually disbelief (or even doubt!) man walked on the moon in 1969/72, then what the hell is the meaning of any politic diatribe/argument worth from the same era?

At least the Apollo missions have real evidence.

Nick

Well, it's $19.95 + shipping--call it $24 in round numbers. Sure, none of us are interested in it enough to shell out that much, but are there 24 people interested enough to kick in a buck, plus the postage to send it on to the next contributor? If not, 12 people willing to kick in $2?

Don't start sending money yet--let's see if there's enough people interested. But if there's enough willing to cough up a buck or two, we could compile a list of everyone's mailing address, send the money to one person (doesn't have to be me, I'll settle for a democratic vote of all contributors), who buys it, views it, then sends it on to #2 on the list, etc. Last person on the list sends it to BA Phil for permanent keeping or ceremonial burning, whichever seems most appropriate.

The (just a thought in passing, really) Curtmudgeon

Heck, I'll kick in a buck. Two, if I'm not the one who has to watch it.
Lisa

Gee Lisa, willing to kick a buck without watching it. Ok, so it sounds pretty nauseating - however, might be interesting to have a looksee.

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Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
~Aristotle

Okay, you throw the pizza in the oven, I'll run out and get beer. I have a feeling that with a video like this, we'll need lots and lots of beer.
I'd be totally shocked if there's anything on that video that we haven't all seen debunked a hundred times.
Lisa

I'll pay somebody else to watch it as long as I can see their facial expressions while watching.

What, you've never seen anyone's jaw drop before? Just make sure Trish isn't holding anything too solid. Replacing TVs gets expensive after a while.
Seriously, is this video supposed to have anything new in it? Or is this just "I was a Teenage Bride of the Son of Fox TV, Part VIII"?
Lisa

Aw, Lisa, I just verbally abuse TVs. It's been at least a month since I've physically abused a TV - but that was Sylvia Brown spouting off about something or other.

__________________
Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
~Aristotle

I wondered how long it would take you to find that post. {snicker}
Has anyone here actually bought this video? If you do, e-mail me and I'll send you my address. I'd like to see it when you're done. I live less than 6 hours from Trish, so we'll be able to give you guys the type of review that, um, you've come to expect of us. We'll have to heavily censor, but most of you know where to find the *real* review.
Lisa